The Rights of Man in the French Revolution

The concept of “the rights of man” was one of the central ideas of the French Revolution, and it became a basic reference for the modern human rights tradition. The French revolutionaries proclaimed a comprehensive catalogue of rights that they held to be the natural and imprescriptible rights of every human being, and they attempted to give effect to these rights in the new political and legal order that they established. This article examines the concept of the rights of man in the French Revolution, including the philosophical foundations, the practical applications, and the legacy of the revolutionary rights tradition.

The Philosophical Foundations

The concept of the rights of man in the French Revolution was grounded in the natural-rights tradition of the Enlightenment, especially in the political philosophy of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The basic claim of the natural-rights tradition — that all human beings possess certain fundamental rights by virtue of their nature as human beings — was a basic commitment of the French Revolution.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), adopted by the National Constituent Assembly in August 1789, was the founding document of the French revolutionary rights tradition. The Declaration opens with the statement: “The representatives of the people of France, constituted as a National Assembly, considering that ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of governments, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn declaration, the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man.”

The Declaration then proceeds to enumerate the natural rights of man. Article I proclaims: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good.” Article II proclaims: “The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.”

The Declaration was widely understood as a manifesto of the natural-rights tradition, and it became a basic reference for the modern human rights tradition. The basic principles of the Declaration — the equality of all men, the natural and imprescriptible rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression, the principle of popular sovereignty, the freedom of speech and of the press — have become basic features of modern constitutional law.

The Practical Applications

The French Revolution attempted to give practical effect to the rights proclaimed in the Declaration. The August Decrees of 1789 abolished the feudal privileges of the nobility, and the various revolutionary constitutions attempted to establish a new political order based on the principles of the Declaration.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) attempted to reorganize the Catholic Church in France on the basis of the principles of the Declaration. The church was placed under state control, and the clergy was required to take an oath of loyalty to the new constitutional order. The confiscation of church property was justified as a means of supporting the new constitutional order.

The revolutionary governments also attempted to give practical effect to the rights of man in the various other domains of social life. The abolition of serfdom, the reform of the criminal law, the establishment of the metric system, the reform of the educational system, the various other reforms of the revolutionary period were all attempts to translate the principles of the Declaration into practical reality.

The practical applications of the rights of man were not always successful. The Terror of 1793–1794 was a serious violation of the rights that the Revolution had proclaimed, and the various other failures of the revolutionary period have been the subject of intense historical debate. But the basic commitment to the rights of man remained a central feature of the revolutionary project, and it continued to shape the French political tradition long after the Revolution was over.

The Limitations of the Revolutionary Rights

The rights proclaimed in the French Revolution were not extended to all human beings. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was, in important respects, a declaration of the rights of men — and specifically, of men who owned property. The various exclusions from the rights proclaimed in the Declaration were a major feature of the revolutionary period, and they have been the subject of intense criticism since.

The first major exclusion was the exclusion of women. The various proposals to extend the rights of the Declaration to women, including the proposals of Olympe de Gouges and Condorcet, were rejected by the revolutionary governments. The proper status of women, in the view of the dominant revolutionary leaders, was the domestic sphere, and the rights of citizenship were reserved for men.

The second major exclusion was the exclusion of the enslaved. The French colonies, especially Saint-Domingue, had large populations of enslaved Africans, and the revolutionary governments were divided on the question of whether the rights of the Declaration should be extended to the enslaved. The abolition of slavery in 1794 was a major step forward, but it was reversed by Napoleon in 1802, and the proper status of the enslaved remained contested throughout the revolutionary period.

The third major exclusion was the exclusion of the poor. The rights of the Declaration, in practice, were most fully realized by the propertied classes, and the various proposals to extend the rights of the Declaration to the poor were rejected by the revolutionary governments. The proper response to poverty, in the view of the dominant revolutionary leaders, was the development of the economy, not the extension of the rights of the Declaration.

The exclusions from the revolutionary rights were a major feature of the revolutionary period, and they have been the subject of intense criticism since. The contemporary defenders of the French Revolution point out that the exclusions were not, in every case, the result of a deliberate attempt to deny the rights, but were often the result of the various practical difficulties of the revolutionary period. The critics of the French Revolution point out that the exclusions were a fundamental contradiction of the universalism that the Declaration had proclaimed.

The Legacy of the Rights of Man

The concept of the rights of man in the French Revolution has had a lasting influence on the development of the modern human rights tradition. The basic principles of the Declaration — the equality of all men, the natural and imprescriptible rights of liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression — have become basic features of modern constitutional law.

The most important lasting influence is on the development of the international human rights regime. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War, drew directly on the language and the structure of the French Declaration. The various international covenants and conventions that have been developed since 1948 — the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and many others — are all descendants of the French revolutionary rights tradition.

Further Reading

• Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (1982)
• Darrin McMahon, Enlightenment Contested (2006)
• Daniel Roche, The Enlightenment in the West (2010)